Beer: Reviews & Ratings

Reviews by asabreed:

4/5 rDev +0.8%look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

Bomber into a Brooklyn tulip.

Appearance: A nice dark red appearance that changes, as they usually do when they're like this, with certain slants of light through the glass. A nice sense of retention's there also, with some combination of sheets and drops of lacing around the bulb, from a colder pour to room temperature after some time.

Smell: A lot of dark sweetness, from toffee to caramel to dark fruits, and finally, as it warms, to the faint oak and wood and vanilla characteristics that mix well with all the barley wine aromas going on. The bourbon characteristics are mild, but present, though I wish they were more prominent.

Taste: Nothing too surprising or different from the aroma, and I think they got the style where they wanted it. Dark fruits, caramelized sugars, some decent bitterness and slight sourness from the hops, with a lot of lingering bitterness, and I'm happy then that it doesn't finish too sweet. And like the aroma, the bourbon characteristics are also subdued, which I wish wasn't necessarily the case. It doesn't take much away from it, but I feel like the amalgam and balance would've been a little more intriguing, at the very least, with possibly more time in the barrels. Seems like maybe they pulled it from the barrels too quickly, but again, I'm not sure.

Mouthfeel: Surely a heavy-bodied beer, with enough carbonation, however, to make this fairly velvety and balanced through and through.

Drinkability: My first Cortland brew, and for around $10 I'd say this is worth a shot, but the emphasis of the bourbon aging without the prominence of the bourbon and wood characteristics might make folks a little wary. That said, as far as the style, for everything it has goin, I definitely enjoyed it. (1,747 characters)

More User Reviews:

This one pours a dark caramel brown, with some visible bubbly carbonation, and no head or lacing.

Smells pretty strong and unfortunately boozy, with some bourbon, and a bit of malty caramel.

This one falls a little bit short, unfortunately. There's not enough malt depth here to compensate for the astringent booziness. It's also got a kind of prickly taste, due to the higher level of carbonation. I get a definite bourbon character, but I also get a woody and boozy astrigency from the bourbon character that is slightly unpleasant. Overall, it does taste good- it seems the underlying base is tasty- lots of toffee and caramel- but the barrel-aging does not really seem to have helped this one, only hurt it.

This has a overcarbonated mouthfeel, for the style at least. It's a slow sipper due to the factors described above.

It's nice to see a halfway decent barrel-aged barleywine from a local(ish) brewer, but this one unfortunately fell short on nearly every front. (1,041 characters)

Pors a nice deep amber with a tinge of burnt orange a half finger frothy head atop.Aromas of vanilla and toasted oak mixed with some nuttiness and dark fruit,a nice malty mix.I really like all the things going on palate wise,the barrel is not over done lending some vanilla and toastiness,caramel toffee flavors mixed with alcohol dipped fruit and some alcohol heat although it's not overly big.A real nice English barleywine here,it's a big sipping chewey beer,as it should be.Well done. (488 characters)

This beer is a deep dark red color, stopping just shy of a shade invoking a more purplish hue. It's translucent, but closer to opaque. The head is a small, soft one that stays up nonetheless, showing strength in what's there as well as lasting power and spreading out thin but consistent netting.This beer gets the malty English Barleywine base down while emphasizing the bourbon. There are three directions a beer like this can go, and it goes toward holding down the balance between the two while leaning toward letting the bourbon take over. There's plenty of sweetness and heat, lots of fig and raisin along with molasses and a little burn as well as vanilla and wood contributions. A bit of mineral shows the English character, and hops are light with just a little leafiness adding a little dryness.The body is a strong medium, and the alcohol adds the heat without thinning it or cutting the crispness. It does have the smoothness the bourbon tends to impart. The sting is a little strong, but not overpowering. (1,027 characters)

The tastes begin with a sweet treacle maltiness intertwined with light vanilla bourbon notes and floral hops. As it warms you get some more of the oak, dark fruits and emerging alcohol notes.

The mouthfeel is medium to full bodied with medium to low carbonation. Finish is warming and semi-dry from the oak.

Overall this was a pleasant surprise given that I had no expectations for this beer. Most beers are better that way anyway. Hopefully I can sample more beers from this brewery as this first one was quite impressive. Reminds me of a more refined Weyerbacher Insanity. (817 characters)

22 oz bottle picked up at Jolly Farmer in Waverly on my way out of New York for good! I think that this local BBA gem was an appropriate final purchase for my lackluster tenure in the Southern Tier. If one thing can be said about northern Appalachia, it's that it produces damn fine beer! Poured into a snifter. Consumed after only about twenty minutes in the freezer.

A - it pours much lighter than expected, a nice pure brown, not too dark and not too light. Half a finger of foam lingers at the top and doesn't go down. This is a pretty beer, not totally outstanding, but definitely good looking.

S - the first thing you get is a big blast of bourbon, sweet, sticky, and full of caramel. The base here is almost totally lost in the haze of booze, but it's certainly not unpleasant. Very sweet, but points off for lack of depth.

T - the first thing that really strikes you is the carbonation, which sticks to your lips unpleasantly. (I have no idea how old this bottle is, by the way, and I find that the more pronounced the carbonation, the older.) But it fades into a nice, sweet, bourbon flavor profile with a lot of the caramel and savory flavors that were detected on the nose. The final impression is a little lacking, as all of the sensations fade rather quickly.

M - not great, there's a lot of stickiness here, with some mild bitterness and bite from the carbonation. The alcohol is completely masked by the sweetness, which is a plus, but I'm not enjoying the heaviness in the mouth after each sip. Perhaps chilling the remainder of the bottle will help.

O - Flight 410 isn't worth the money, especially if you can find Damnation by Horseheads, another BBBW, also 10%, which is cheaper, sweeter, and more balanced. I find that this style is really easy to mess up, and really difficult to get right. (1,816 characters)